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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27088066">(it's not like) i don't know my way</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Analinea/pseuds/Analinea'>Analinea</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Be still, my whumper's heart [12]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Charlie's Angels (2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Confusion, Day 18, Failed escape, Gen, On the Run, Paranoia, Sabina whump, Where Do You Think You're Going, Whumptober 2020, and day 5, asking for a friend, does this count as brainwashing, hokay so, one of the fics didn't have any italics but i just saved my quota to use it here, putting is as gen again cause there's no active romance here, she's rescued dw</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-09 02:48:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,450</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27088066</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Analinea/pseuds/Analinea</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s an image, everytime she closes her eyes. It’s engraved on the back of her eyes in reverse: running through a forest blurred by speed, vaulting over fallen trees turned grey like rock, being surrounded by armed men. Caught again. And again. And again.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Elena Houghlin &amp; Jane Kano &amp; Sabina Wilson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Be still, my whumper's heart [12]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947337</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Whumptober 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>(it's not like) i don't know my way</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Title is from a song by Until the ribbon breaks (again, yes, I know) called Romeo and Juliet go give them a listen!</p><p>Also, I wrote this mostly today, found a cool title, thought hey I'll edit the fic to fit more with the title, then didn't...so I changed the title hah! Not sure that's a good thing or I'm losing my grip *shrugs*</p><p>Enjoy the result of me having finally cleaned my room but not washed my hair, it's experimental (the fic not the hair) but I think it came out alright!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span> There’s an image, everytime she closes her eyes. It’s engraved on the back of her eyes in reverse: running through a forest blurred by speed, vaulting over fallen trees turned grey like rock, being surrounded by armed men. Caught again. And again. And again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span> Failing the same level of a game she didn’t sign up to play.</span>
</p><p>
  <span> The line between reality and fiction is a curved one, but bend it too far and it breaks. Sabina </span>
  <em>
    <span>knows</span>
  </em>
  <span> what’s the lie –a video rolling on a blank, dirty wall– but her mind won’t let her believe the truth. </span>
</p><p>
  
  <em>
    <span>What if, though? </span>
  </em>
  <span>it asks, relentlessly, each time she promises herself it had merely been an illusion.</span>
</p><p>
  <span> She blames the fever, or the starvation. Not the malleability of a fragile brain, no, that would be too scary to consider. </span>
</p><p>
  <span> So she rationalizes it like this: three days ago, she agreed to let herself be captured to get information. None of them expected Sabina to be put in a dark cell, humidity sinking in through her skin to drown her from the inside, denied food. Left staring at a homemade movie, first person point of view, of a failed escape. Played on a loop.</span>
</p><p>
  <span> What could she do but laugh, at first? </span>
</p><p>
  <span> Then, she’d started dreaming it.</span>
</p><p>
  
  <em>
    <span>It’s not true</span>
  </em>
  <span>, she repeats until if flows out of her, a waterfall out of her lips, uncontainable, violent. </span>
</p><p>
  <span> The others were supposed to pull her out after three days– she tried to hold herself back for the appointed time...But the primal part of her, the one that thinks through bone marrow and guts instead of her head, screamed at her to run.</span>
</p><p>
  <span> She has always been sensitive to the loudest thing in the room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span> The messy get out has led her to a familiar forest but she discovers the sounds and the lines of perspective for the first time; it’s alive, it has depth, and she’s running through it again for the first time. </span>
</p><p>
  <span> She’s not fast. The world tips and turns so she stumbles between the mossy trunks, over the dead branches. Her heaving breath is one part of a whole symphony, top volume in her ears but all she can think is that They will hear her. </span>
  <em>
    <span>It’s not true</span>
  </em>
  <span>. A forest as a beat, but never as purposed as the crunch of wet leaves under her feet. They’ll hear her. </span>
  <em>
    <span>It’s not true</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span> She catches herself on a tree, gasps in and out; a crack to her right– they’re here. Rooted on the spot, she turns on her heels, eyes roaming the forest: this shadow? This mound? The shape that flies behind the undergrowth when she’s looking just to the side? </span>
  <em>
    <span>It’s not true</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span> Her chest has trouble keeping up with the rhythm it set. Even the hand propping her up is shaking. She needs to sit down– if she does, she’ll turn into a statue right here, blend into rough bark like that picture she saw once, of a bike melded with a tree. </span>
</p><p>
  <span> But if she runs too fast, eyes will catch her– </span>
  <em>
    <span>it’s not true</span>
  </em>
  <span>, again, </span>
  <em>
    <span>run</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span> She does. </span>
</p><p>
  <span> She remembers the path but not the ache in her legs. The knot shaped like an eye –watching her </span>
  <em>
    <span>stop</span>
  </em>
  <span>– the abandoned nest. She took the exact same path innumerable times; and every time she got caught. </span>
  <em>
    <span>No you didn’t</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span> She stops; it’s so easy, she’s so slow. Her throat burns, cold air rasping up and down; her saliva is thick. Running hasn’t made her nauseous since living in the streets of New-York, having forgotten the taste of exercise. </span>
</p><p>
  <span> She tells herself she’s only shaking because of the cooling of her sweat, not because she can’t go further. She needs to go further. </span>
</p><p>
  <span> But further to where? Following the trail with the armed men? </span>
  <em>
    <span>It’s not true</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Her training tells her </span>
  <em>
    <span>yes, to the east, to the Angels</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span> But They’re waiting for her there. </span>
  <em>
    <span>That’s only what they wanted you to believe</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span> Sabina doesn’t want to dwell on it too much, on why They did this to her. She knows, oh does she know, that sometimes there’s no reason. No plan, no big picture, not even revenge; only pleasure and boredom. She’s never sure what’s more cruel; she doesn’t reflect on the question.</span>
</p><p>
  <span> She leaves that to Elena and Jane, late at night, feeling philosophical. </span>
</p><p>
  <span> She’s not unthinking, though. She’s always been the daring one, true. Elena will be impulsive, never overthinking when it’s not about engineering; Jane will think things through at a speed that leaves no place for hesitation, only for </span>
  <em>
    <span>go</span>
  </em>
  <span> or </span>
  <em>
    <span>hold</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Her risks are calculated down to the chances of failure. </span>
</p><p>
  <span> Sabina will be the one looking at plans doomed to crash and burn, shrug with a challenge in her grin and say </span>
  <em>
    <span>eh, let’s do this</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span> She loves that Elena and Jane know when to trust her and when to stop her. Sabina can be hunting for an accident when her brain forgets that she’s supposed to be happy; but they have her back, as she has theirs. </span>
</p><p>
  <span> So she doesn’t dwell; she dares. She goes east. </span>
</p><p>
  <span> Echoes follow her– They’re right behind </span>
  <em>
    <span>they’re not</span>
  </em>
  <span>. With the sun going down, shadows stretch as cats after a nap just before they slink into deeper darkness. They’re hiding in it </span>
  <em>
    <span>they’re not. It’s not true.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span> The waterfall dried to a dripping steam: she repeats the words noiselessly for lack of an air to carry the sound. She barely has enough to fill her lungs, she can’t waste the spaces between each breath.</span>
</p><p>
  <span> Suddenly, the terrain is new; she’s past the ambush. She made it, but she can’t relax yet. This could be part of the game. She won’t be careless. </span>
  <em>
    <span>We agree on that</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span> Going up the low hill comes with scraping her knees when tender earth gives way under her weight; she ends up clawing her way up on hands on feet and tries not to feel humiliated by that even as They’re watching and laughing. </span>
  <em>
    <span>No one’s here but you</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span> No, no, They’re right here surrounding her, mocking her, Their rifles sticking out from behind every blind spots </span>
  <em>
    <span>only branches</span>
  </em>
  <span> even if They won’t have the mercy to shoot to kill. They’ll just drag her back and she can’t.</span>
</p><p>
  <span> In that cell, she’ll get lighter and hotter until the lack of her catches fire– </span>
  <em>
    <span>get a grip</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Sabina blinks away the incoherence, anchors herself to the soil under her fingernails. One of them is still dreaming the forest and the other makes her way through it; she’s not sure which is which but she’ll hang on to the hope that on the other side of that slope–</span>
</p><p>
  <span> She gets to the top. Passes the low ridge.</span>
</p><p>
  <span> Sliding down the wet leaves is harder than it should be, so loud, she’ll grab Their attention. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Do we need to say this again?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span> To the bottom. A right turn. And there.</span>
</p><p>
  <span> “Sabina?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span> The sharp cry makes her duck and swallow her next breath; it’s Them and They’ll hear </span>
  <em>
    <span>you recognize that voice</span>
  </em>
  <span>. At her core, she does, but isn’t it a trick? </span>
</p><p>
  <span> “Sabina, oh my god, wha– we were just about to–” something comes fast towards her, out of the shadows. She’s been caught again </span>
  <em>
    <span>it’s Elena</span>
  </em>
  <span> and she backs up until she hits a tree. Please, no.</span>
</p><p>
  <span> “Honey,” more careful, less professional. The attacker slows down, hands out. “Saba, it’s us.” Us? A second person comes from behind a tree, Sabina whimpers at the back of her throat, weak and inaudible though she feels the sound. “We were about to come get you, like we agreed. What happened?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span> She’s not sure. She hasn’t been for a while now. </span>
</p><p>
  <span> A whisper reaches her ears though the exact shape of the words escape her. Plotting. </span>
  <em>
    <span>You’re safe, dumbass</span>
  </em>
  <span>. It takes three more uncontrollable gasps before it sinks in. She blinks the curve between reality and fiction back where it’s supposed to be. </span>
</p><p>
  <span> Elena and Jane stand before her, confused. Sabina hates the way Jane purposefully shrinks into herself to approach her. Trying to look unthreatening. Sabina has never been scared of Jane. It was only the hypervigilance. The video still playing behind her eyelids.</span>
</p><p>
  <span> “Can I touch you?” Jane asks, voice low. Sabina shakes her head no before she remembers to shake it yes. “Okay,” Jane breathes out with the softness one usually reserves for the last matchstick in the box. Her fingers outstretch, deliberate, then come to rest on Sabina’s forehead. “Fuck. You’re burning up.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span> “Always said I’m the hot one,” she finds her voice. Then she loses herself to the trust of being found.</span>
</p><p>
  <span> When she dares closing her eyes, she doesn’t dream.</span>
</p><p>
  <span> It’s a relief.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'm <a href="https://kinsbournescream.tumblr.com/tagged/ana-writes-sometimes">not one of the porn bots I swear</a></p><p>Kudos please, comments double please, I love you all anyway &lt;3&lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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